1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for recovery of plastic, particularly for recovery of plastic floating in a settling basin.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Several types of systems have been used in the past for recovery of plastics in settling basins or ponds. As a bi-product in the manufacture of plastic goods, plastic polymer pellets or materials are discharged into settling basins. As the value of these discharged plastic pellets has increased recently, their recovery from these basins has become commercially desirable. In the past the recovery methods from these relatively shallow and contained settling basins have been crude and labor intensive. Some recovery methods used in the past include individuals positioned either on the shore, in small boats or on floating platforms to manually recover the plastic material using nets or an open ended suction hose that required the individual to move to the floating plastic material for its recovery. As is apparent, these past methods and system were time consuming and not cost effective.
In non-analogous arts there has been apparatus disclosed for removing undesirable floating oil or other hazardous liquid spills to prevent contamination of water, deterioration of shoreline land values, the loss of animal life and fire hazards. U.S. Pat. No. 3,578,171 issued May 11, 1971 discloses an oil spill clean-up apparatus including an anti-pollution barge floating on the surface of the contaminated water to skim and pump the oil slick into floating settling tanks towed by the barge. The barge further includes a swing boom from which a skimmer assembly is suspended and positioned below the surface of the water. The skimmer assembly includes a grilled or screened intake communicating with a skimmer hose extending below the screened intake. This skimmer hose is connected to a pump located on the deck of the barge.
The '171 patent also discloses the use of a slick bar or buoyant confining devices to contain the oil slick for subsequent pumping by the skimmer assembly. Additionally, a buoyant tubular conduit having a series of longitudinal spaced inwardly facing air ports is disclosed for the purpose of confining the floating oil. Also, disclosure is made in the '171 patent for providing a power-operated air blower by which oil pollutants may be moved within a flexible slick bar and thus be eventually encircled for the purpose of skimming. The preferred embodiment of the '171 barge is approximately 36 to 40 feet long and 101/2 to 12 feet wide, weighing approximately 8,000 pounds.